1c Propositions and Illocutions [PDF]

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25 Propositions and illocutions



namely sentence meaning and utterance meaning. The notion of proposition, and the closely related concepts of predication and reference, are crucial for sentence meaning. The notion of illocution is crucial for utterance meaning. The two kinds of meaning are different, although they obviously interact in communication.



UNIT 25 PROPOSITIONS AND ILLOCUTIONS Definition Entry DIRECT and INDIRECT ILLOCUTIONS (Unit 24). If you feel you Require understand these notions, take the entry test below ments If not, review Unit 24 Practice



Entry test



SENTENCE MEANING is what a sentence means, regardless of the context and situation in which it may be used. UTTERANCE MEANING is what a speaker means when he makes an utterance in a particular situation. Each of the following is a statement from an everyday context in which the words meaning or means or mean or meant is used. Say whether the



(1) Briefly define what is meant by a directive (1) A statement by a tourist guide: The inscription above this door, translated into English, means Those who enter here will live forever. S/U (2) What did you mean by telling me you'd think twice about lending money to Gary? S/U (3) When George says that his gun is loaded he means it as a threat. S/U (2) I think I understand the literal meaning of what you're saying, but I can't see why you should be saying it to me. S/U (3) Fred is very understanding; he knows what I mean even though I don't use the right words to say it. S/U (4) No head injury is too trivial to ignore actually, and sur prisingly, S/U means the opposite of what you first think.



act. A directive act is any illocutionary act which



(2) Give an example of a directive act.



(3) Briefly define what is meant by a commissive act. A commissive act is any illocutionary act



(4) Give an example of a commissive act.



(5) Is the sentence I promise to fail you if you do not hand



in your essay on time literally used to promise? (Assume normal circumstances.)



Comment



The gap between sentence meaning and utterance meaning is least noticeable when speakers are being direct (i.e., not being ironic, or diplomatic, or polite). Politeness is one of the main motivations for using an indirect illocution in preference to a direct one (Unit 24). In the previous unit we saw how a speaker could carry out an indirect illocution by (directly) asserting or questioning certain of its felicity conditions. Now we will go through an exactly parallel exercise, illuminating one aspect of the relationship between propositions and illocutions.



Definition (partial)



The PROPOSITIONAL CONTENT of a directive illocution can be expressed by a declarative sentence describing the action that the speaker requires of the hearer. (This definition is partial because it only



Yes /No



In this unit we will try to draw out some of the relationships between two large areas of meaning that we have mentioned so far in this book, Introduction



6 Interpersonal meaning



25 Propositions and illocutions



applies to directives. It does not apply to commissives, for instance, or other types of illocution.) Practice



Express the prepositional content of each of the following directives with a declarative sentence. (1) "I would like you to feed my cat while I'm on holiday" You will …………….



(3) Give an interrogative sentence corresponding to sentence (3) in the feedback above. (4) Would uttering this sentence normally be a more, or a less polite way of carrying out the illocution involved?



More / less



(5) Give an interrogative sentence corresponding to the answer to sentence (4) above sentence (4) in the feedback above.



(2) "Forceps!" (uttered by a surgeon during an operation) (6) Would uttering this sentence actually carry out the same directive illocutionary act as uttering the corresponding declarative sentence?



(3) "Relax!" (4) "Don't give up!"



Comment



(5) In each of the above cases, would uttering the declara tive sentence you have given actually carry out (either more or less directly) the same directive illocution as the original utterance?



Yes / No



(6) In general, does it seem that uttering a declarative sentence describing an action required of the hearer actually carries out a directive illocution?



Yes / No



Thus another way of carrying out an indirect directive is to question the prepositional content of the illocution. This method actually results in a more polite utterance than simply asserting the prepositional content. But, as we have seen in the last two examples (Will you relax? and Won't you give up?}, this method is not completely general. Sometimes uttering the interrogative is not more polite than uttering the corresponding declarative. And sometimes the interrogative form gives rise to a quite different illocution (as in the last example). These exceptions probably have something to do with the special nature of such items as relax, give up, and the effects of negation. We will not delve more deeply into such complications, but will turn to the case of indirect commissives.



(7) Is it polite (P) or rather impolite (I) to issue a direc tive with an P /1 utterance beginning "You will... "?



Comment



Practice



Yes / No



One way of carrying out an indirect directive is to (directly) assert that the hearer will carry out the action required, i.e. to assert the propositional content of the directive. But this method of getting people to do things is hardly less blunt or more polite than simply issuing a direct directive. We look now at a method that is (in some instances, at least) more polite. (1) Give an interrogative sentence corresponding to the answer to sent. (1) above.



(2) Would uttering this sentence normally be a more, or a less polite way of carrying out the illocution involved? / Less



More



Practice



(1) In the case of directives, the actor who is to carry out the required action is the hearer of the utterance. Who is the actor to carry out the action concerned in the case of commissive illocutions? (2) Could the propositional content of an offer to give the hearer a piece of gum be expressed with the sentence / will give you a piece of gum ? (3) In general, can the propositional content of any com missive illocution be expressed with a sentence of the form I will. . . ?



Yes / No



Yes / No



6 Interpersonal meaning



25 Propositions and illocutions



Definition (partial)



The PROPOSITIONAL CONTENT of a COMMISSIVE ILLOCUTION can be expressed by a declarative sentence describing the action which the speaker undertakes to perform.



Comment



Now we will see whether asserting and questioning the propositional content of a commissive actually (indirectly) carries out that cornmissive, parallel to the case of directives.



Practice



(1) In each of the following cases, give an assertion of the propositional content of the commissive illocution concerned. We have done the first one for you. (a) Father promising to buy his son a rubber dinghy when he can swim “I will buy you a rubber dinghy when you can swim” (b) Dinner guest, offering to help wash the dinner dishes: (c) Soldier volunteering to cover his section's retreat: (2) For each of the above cases (a)-(c), turn the assertion you gave as answer into a question.



Comment



(3) Could the utterances (assertions) given as answers to (1) (a)-(c) actually be commissive speech acts (i.e. acts of promising, offering, and volunteering?)



Yes / No



(4) Could the utterances (questions) that you gave as answers to (2) (a)-(c) actually be commissive speech acts?



Yes /No



Commissives are like directives in that they can be indirectly carried out by asserting their propositional content, but they differ from directives in that they cannot generally be carried out by questioning their prop-



ositional content. (Actually there are several dialectal complications involving shall and will which we will not pursue here.) The situation can be summarized as in the table below. Considerations of politeness are among the main reasons for speakers preferring to get their message across by means of indirect, rather than direct, illocutions. Directives



Commissives



ASSERTION of propositional content



relatively impolite



moderately polite



QUESTIONING of propositional content



relatively polite



moderately polite but not appropriate in all cases



We leave the topic of politeness now and look at other aspects of the relationship between speech acts and the propositions they involve. The fact that one can talk about the propositional content of any speech act should not be taken to indicate that propositions necessarily 'precede' or 'underlie' speech acts. One can conceive of a speech act being committed without any thought of its propositional content passing through the mind of the speaker. The relationship between propositions and illocutions is simply a special case of the age-old, and very thorny, question of the relationship between thought and action. There is no simple statement of this relationship. In rational behaviour, thought precedes and shapes action, but, as we all know, thoughtless actions occur and can be significant. Even thoughtless actions can be described, after the event, with declarative sentences, i.e. in terms of propositions. With these reservations in mind, we will continue to examine the relationship between sentences and utterances, concentrating on reference and predication. If I say to you: "Will you turn off the kitchen light?" (1) What is the direct illocution of the utterance (assertion, question or command)?



6 Interpersonal meaning



25 Propositions and illocutions



(2) What is the indirect illocution of the utterance (e.g. apology, promise, .. . )? (Assume normal circumstances.) (3) Does the utterance use any referring expressions? Yes/No (4) If there are any referring expressions used, list them (5) In this utterance, is any predicate used to express a con nection between the Yes / No things or persons referred to? (6) What is this predicate? (7) In making this utterance, would I normally be carrying out one or more acts of Yes / No reference? (8) In making this utterance, would I be carrying out an act of predicating some connection between the obj ects or persons referred to?Yes I No (9) In this instance, Does the predication apply to a past, present or future connection between the objects or persons referred to? Past / Present / Future Comment We see in the above example that even though an utterance is used primarily to do something, i.e. to perform a significant social act such as requesting, the notions of reference and predicate are crucially involved. This is the case in most instances; propositional meaning and interpersonal meaning are closely interwoven. We show below that in some cases, however, the principal participants in illocutionary acts are not explicitly referred to, and that in a tiny minority of cases, an illocutionary act can even be carried out without any obvious use of reference and predication at all. The speaker and the hearer are the main parties involved in illocutionary acts. But note that a specific utterance may or may not explicitly refer to the speaker or the hearer.



"Thanks a lot" (3) (a) (4)



(b) Yes /No



(c) Yes /No



(b) Yes /No



(c) Yes /No



(b) Yes/No



(c) Yes /No



"Please will you pass the sugar" (a)



(6)



(c) Yes /No



"Go away" (a)



(5)



(b) Yes/No



"I hereby undertake to pay all my debts" (a)



Comment We see that for an illocutionary act to be carried out, there is no need for either the speaker or the hearer to be referred to (although, in general, reference to the speaker or hearer makes the illocution of an utterance more explicit, and hence clearer). We will now look to see whether the linguistic device of predication is also in some cases dispensable. Can an illocutionary act be carried out without even the use of predication? Practice (1) Would it seem reasonable to say that / thank you has as its meaning a proposition, Yes / No involving two referring expressions and a (two-place) predicate thank (2) What illocutionary act is normally carried out with the utterance "Hello"? (3) Is Hello a declarative sentence?



Yes I No



(4) Would it seem reasonable to call hello a predicate?



Yes I No



Practice For each of the following utterances, (a) name the most likely illocutionary act being carried out, (b) say whether the speaker is explicitly referred to and (c) say whether the hearer is explicitly referred to.



Yes I No (6) Is there a negative of Hello



(1) "I am most grateful to you" (a) (2) "Thank you very much" (a)



(5) What is the negative oflthankyoul



(b) Yes / No (c) Yes / No (b) Yes / No (c) Yes/No



(7) Would it seem reasonable to analyse the meaning of Hello as a proposition?



Yes I No



1



6 Interpersonal meaning 25 Propositions and illocutions Practice



Comment (1) What illocutionary act is normally carried out in uttering "Hey!" (2) Would it be reasonable to analyse the meaning of Hey! as a proposition, involving referring expressions and a predicate? (3) What illocutionary act is normally carried out in uttering "Goodbye"? (4) Would it be reasonable to analyse the meaning of Goodbye as a proposition, involving referring expressions and a predicate?



Comment



Practice



Yes I No



Yes I No



Expressions like Hello, Goodbye and Hey! belong to a tiny set that seem to have purely non-propositional meaning. Although of course it is possible to describe their effects with declarative sentences such as / greet you and / take my leave of you, this is not an argument that Hello, Goodbye and Hey! themselves have propositions as their meanings, or that they contain referring expressions or predicates. Such expressions are for this reason (verbal) gestures, parallel in essential ways to non-verbal gestures such as waves, nods and handshakes. Rather than classing these expressions under categories of meaning such as predicate or name, we will categorize them simply as primary illocution indicators.



Given below are some further utterances which could also be regarded as using primary illocution indicators. For each one, state the illocutionary act(s) (1) "Bravo!" (2) "Please" (3) "Hi" (4) "Pardon?" (5) "Hooray" (6) "Eh?"



Summary



Clearly, one-word primary illocution indicators such as these are a rather marginal part of language. Note that most of those given cannot be integrated into sentences, but can only be used on their own. An exception is please, which can occur in the middle of a sentence, as in Will library users please return books to the shelves? The use of please in an utterance makes it unambiguously a request. The use of please to indicate a particular illocution is highly conventionalized. No other English word can be so straightforwardly associated with one particular illocution, while at the same time being able to appear in the middle of sentences, as please can.



The study of speech acts adds a dimension to the study of meaning, in particular the interpersonal dimension. It gives us a way of describing how speakers use sentences in actual utterances to interact with other speakers in social situations, exchanging such socially significant illocutions as promises, requests, greetings, warnings, etc. But human communication is not purely interpersonal; people communicate about the world they live in, using reference and predication. In these units we hope to have given some idea of the complex ways in which all these semantic notions are related.